If you've ever wondered how the InDesign pros get twice the work done in half the time, here's how: They know every inside tip, every hidden keyboard shortcut, and every little trick. They know the smartest, fastest, and most efficient way to do just about everything. In this sample chapter, authors Scott Kelby and Terry White share all the best "tricks of the trade" for working with color in InDesign CS and InDesign CS2.

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Now why would anyone title a chapter about working with color “Color Blind”? Well, here’s the thing. It’s always been our
credo (by the way, I have no idea what a credo is) to title our chapters with the name of a song or a movie, and then below
the title, the real description of the chapter appears as a subhead. Is this a good plan? No. But it’s what we do (it’s that
credo thing again). So, is there a song named “Color Blind”? Yup (it’s by Michael W. Smith). I originally wanted to use Color
Me Badd, which was the name of a group that had some hits back in the 80s (remember “I want to sex you up”?), but I didn’t
think Color Me Badd sounded positive enough. Color Me Good has a better feeling, but I couldn’t find a band named Color Me
Good; so Color Blind, while not a stellar chapter name, won the nod. By the way, there’s also a song named “Color Blind Dog”
by Dishpan, and I briefly considered that as well, but I hate chapter names that make you feel sad (e.g., “That poor little
dog,” etc.).

Drag from Palette to Palette

Here’s a nice time saver—if you’ve created a color in the Color palette, the quickest way to save that color to your Swatches palette is to just drag-and-drop it. Just click directly on the preview swatch in the Color palette, and drag that over to the Swatches palette. Again, you’ll
see the cursor change to a hand with a plus (+) sign, and a black horizontal line will appear in the Swatches palette right
where your swatch will appear—all you have to do is let go of the mouse button and that custom color will now be saved as
a color swatch in your Swatches palette.